CFP: Book and Text Studies (South Africa) (9/1/06; 4/2/07-4/4/07)

A World Elsewhere: Orality, Manuscript and Print in Colonial andPost-Colonial Cultures

An international conference to be held at the Centre for the Book,Cape Town, 2-4 April 2007

Please send abstracts (500 words maximum) or proposals for sessions by1 September 2006 to Mark Espin, PO Box 15254, Vlaeberg, Cape Town8018, South Africa; or ideally by e-mail to Mark.Espin_at_nlsa.ac.za, andcc to j.gouws_at_ru.ac.za. A preliminary programme should be announced by1 December 2006.

The conference will address a wide range of questions relating to `thehistory of the book' in colonial and post-colonial contexts. Relevant topicsinclude:

* national and transnational communities of letters;* alternative public spheres;* censorship;* the history of reading and reading theories;* reviewing and criticism;* authorship;* sociologies of the text;* text and image;* the economies of cultural prestige;* media history;* the cultures of collecting;* library history;* literacy;* oral cultures;* orality and print;* printing and publishing history;* the marketing and distribution of books;* the electronic text;* and the future of the book.

As a sub-theme, it is hoped that the conference will address issuesrelating to the identification, preservation and dissemination of, andaccess to, Southern African textual culture, at a time when theheritage of the past is threatened and the outlook for the future isuncertain. The purpose is to bring together all stakeholders:academics working in the fields of Textual Studies, Book and CulturalHistory, the Media, Anthropology, and new and old technologies of thetext, archivists, librarians, educationalists, publishers, publicadministrators, funding bodies and government. It is hoped thatspecial attention will be given to the development of protocols forrecording Southern African orature and performance art. The purpose ofthe conference is to examine the present and to plan for the future:how do we ensure that future generations have access to our past,present and future textual cultural heritage? We would welcome theparticipation of international delegates whose experience elsewherecould inform our deliberations.

Through an engagement with questions of identifying and maintainingmaterial resources, and enabling access to the continuing SouthernAfrican textual heritage, the conference seeks to investigate abroader set of theoretical themes around texts and textuality. Haveparticular configurations of South African society produced uniqueunderstandings of what texts are and how they might be used? Havethere been styles of reading, interpretation and textual use in thepast that have dropped from view? (For example, early AfricanChristianity has produced interesting forms of divinely inspiredreading and writing.) What kinds of different relationships,institutions and communities have been built up in and through texts,and in what ways are they peculiarly South African? Are thereanalogues elsewhere? How might we understand such practices, and inwhat ways should they influence protocols for the maintenance of, andaccess to, cultural heritages?